McDonagh, who has 14 goals and 43 points, said: "I told them I'm ready to go. He felt it would be good to just give it one more day of full rest. We've got three days of practice; that'll be good enough to prepare for games that are really important."

McDonagh, who logs 25 minutes a night, said his conditioning is good and that he recovered full range of motion several days ago. "I've been able to get my shot back even harder, and passing and skating is no issue," he said. "You've got to respect the coach's decision. We've talked about going on what we hope is a long run here."

For the playoffs, Vigneault must decide which defenseman sits when McDonagh returns. The choices appear to be Raphael Diaz or Kevin Klein. "I've got a pretty good idea what I'm going to do there, but we'll see how tonight unfolds," Vigneault said.

After the game, Vigneault said the winning penalty shot resulted from a mix-up between the two on a bouncing puck.

In achippy game, Derek Dorsett had 19 minutes in penalties, including a 10-minute misconduct for retaliating after P.K. Subban crosschecked him several times while he was face down on the ice at 12:51 of the second period . . . Each team was 0-for-3 on the power play.

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